We are excited to start off the work week by welcoming Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald to Business as usual.
Get the latest data and information regarding COVID-19 vaccinations and infections in Allegheny County. The County Executive will also detail the county's plans to keep people safe as we return to more open businesses and summer activities.
Join us for this important update and ask Rich your questions regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
Transcription:
So good afternoon, everyone. Happy Monday. This is Audrey Russa. So glad all of you can join us today, we're pretty thrilled to having the Allegheny County Executive rich Fitzgerald with us. And actually, we're, this is a fourth time he's been on our show in a year. And we're just saying he's giving his quarterly update here. So we're pretty excited to have him. He's a good friend to the tech community, and the community at large. So before we get started, I want to thank Huntington bank for the work that they do in believing in us in the longtime partnership, Jonathan cursings, with us today, and he's a deep partner with Huntington bank on all things, telling stories, and highlighting the region and our member companies. He's Vice President of Marketing and media, I also want to thank at&t, for our partners on public policy. They have been, you know, supporting us in the work that we're doing, making sure that all things related to government related to advocacy and public policy are highlighted. And anything that is meaningful, important to the tech sector, we partner on to make sure that we're moving ahead, Southwestern Pennsylvania needs to be a place that continues to have innovation thrive 40 by 80, that's the longitude and latitude of Pittsburgh. And that's our wholly owned subsidiary of the tech Council. It's our 501 C, three, our charitable arm, you're gonna hear a lot more in terms of the work we're doing in apprenticeships, as well as the work that we've been doing on entrepreneurism and supporting women, as well. So you can we have a website for that if you want to join. So we've muted your microphones. And we've also asked you that this is not an opportunity to sell your wares. This is an opportunity to focus on our guests. And on that note, I am bringing to the forefront, county executive rich Fitzgerald and I like to say that this is his quarterly update. He's been he's the he is the most frequent guest on our show, which means number four, so really appreciate in times of, in times like these, we have so much to catch up on. So I just want to first of all, thank you, rich for being with us. And thank you for the work that you've done over in particular over this last year. Plus, it's been intense, to say the least. So we want to get an update, we want to get an update on the state of the county and maybe start with an update on the pandemic, since you oversee the health department, you have been living this each and every day for at least 13 months. And let's talk a little bit about our progress in Allegheny County, we've been slightly ahead of the rest of the country. And, you know, how are we doing? You can take it from the top? Well, I
think, you know, doing as well as can be expected. We are concerned again, a little bit about some of the case numbers that are going up. But the kind of the good news is those case numbers seem to be going up among young healthy people, as opposed to early in the pandemic and even through January, December, January, February, where it was still people over the age of 65 who were contracting the disease and that isn't a serious this fatalities, etc. that came about with it. The flip side of that is in the governor who was in town last week, Governor Wolf said we're now in a race the race is between the vaccine getting in as many people's arms as we can versus two cases. And the good news is we in Allegheny County, are now close to 800,000 vaccinations in arms that have occurred, that means almost 300,000 people have been vaccinated. And another 200,000 almost a quarter of a million people have had at least one shot in the put those numbers and I know what the tech folks we got people are numbers people. We roughly have about a million adults in Allegheny County to reach what the CDC and others call herd immunity. You'd like to be between 70 and 90% of people being vaccinated. So if we take the middle there and say 80% that would be about 800,000 adults who would need to be vaccinated, which is each gets two shots. 1.6 million shots in arms. We're halfway there. We're about 800,000 shots in arms. Right now. We did 50,000 shots with over 50,000 over the weekend. As more and more vaccine is available, more people are able to get it. The other announcement that just came out in the last couple of hours, was it the governor has said everybody is now eligible. There's no more one a one B one C are your frontline worker, Do you work here? Do you work there? Everybody now is eligible to get a vaccine and that is really Really good news. So that's not to say everybody's going to get one tomorrow. But the supply, which is opening up at our local pharmacies, and h n and UPMC at the county health department and all the different clinics that are out there, we're seeing more and more folks who are getting them. I've been to a dozen or more clinics over the last month, it is one of the most inspiring type of things you ever want to see. People are so happy when they show up at one of the vaccine clinics, the folks that are checking them in the folks that are parking, the cars, the folks that are putting the shots in arms. They're so enthusiastic, and so helpful to the folks who are getting those vaccines, you can tell they know, they are giving people freedom and literally saving people's lives. So this has really been to see this go out in a cross in all kinds of neighborhoods and all kinds of places in the county has been very heartwarming. As we start to turn this corner, we start to see more and more people going back to the office. You know, the governor lifted that restriction a couple of weeks ago. So telling people they can go back to the office now, still encouraging as many people to work at home if they can, but the order is has been lifted. And I can tell you from the county standpoint, when it comes to our activities. This summer, we're planning on opening up, our poles are going to be opened up they weren't last summer, our concert series in heartwood acres and in South Park on Sunday nights and Friday night concerts are going to open up again this summer, our activities in the park sports and exercise and other activities are also going to open up in the park. So we're seeing more and more folks getting back to normal. The Pirates now. Opening Day The other day, again, not full capacity. But people for the first time returning to the baseball parks, the penguins have now had folks in ppg, paints arena, the theaters are now opening up again. So we're slowly getting to that point where you know, folks are opening up. The other thing that is that has happened is as Dr. Fauci and Dr. Bogan and others have said, If everyone in your office has been vaccinated, and they're beyond that two week period, and you're in a meeting with five or six people, you can all take your masks off. Because now if everybody's been protected, it's going to spread. So again, we're starting to see this, this slowly opening up of activities it's occurred, I feel, again, very bullish. I've said this in the last number that I've been in front of you about our economic prospects for the future. I think we've handled this in this region about as well as can be expected better than other places around the country. And I think it's given a lot of confidence to the developers who continue to be bullish on the development that they're doing, whether it's in residential, whether it's in commercial or industrial, that continues to happen, we're starting to see more and more people come back to the airport and our flight numbers or passenger count numbers are starting to go up. You saw that the President came here a couple of weeks ago, talking about his infrastructure plan, and was very excited about the fact that we in Pittsburgh, are going to be the first airport to do a major construction project, post pandemic. So again, that's something we can be proud of that project continues to move forward, the bus rapid transit connection between downtown and Oakland, again, that is continuing to move forward. So we see a lot of progress, that it's happening here. Again, a lot of the folks in the tech community have continued to figure out how to operate through this pandemic, making the adjustments that they needed to make, and now we'll be making the adjustments as again, we probably slowly open up and maybe some places faster than others. I don't think it's going to be an on off switch. I think it'd be more like a dimmer switch, where people feel more comfortable going to a restaurant feel more comfortable going to a concert venue or a show or a sporting event or what have you. So I think we're starting to get to that point. The one thing I would encourage the folks on this call is young people who are now eligible to get that vaccine. We want them to get that vaccine, we just feel the more people we can get vaccinated, the more we can get back to normal and a better time frame. So we've seen almost 80% of the over 65 population has already been vaccinated, at least with one shot so we think we've done a pretty good job of of convincing and protecting folks in that most vulnerable of population. But now we've got to obviously change out and get their kids and grandkids to get the vaccine as well. So let me open it up to any questions people might have. Great.
Let's get let's let's just jump to one question, and then we'll open it up for some other questions. You know, you mentioned that the President was here. And we've seen the launch, you know, this new administration at the federal level, how is the state of our partnership with the federal government today? And can you talk about the impact of the recent federal stimulus package on the county?
Well, the I'll talk about the stimulus package the ARP, as they call it, the American rescue plan, and certainly been very helpful not just to county government, to state government, but also our municipal governments that have been impacted by you know, by the revenues by the pandemic. That'll be very helpful to and also, obviously, for the businesses that have been affected, particularly those that have been most affected in the hospitality industry, in our restaurant, business, hotel, business, etc, have been very videos, there's no question that the unemployment rate and the job loss in those industries have been been higher than they have been across the spectrum. You know, we're very fortunate here that we do feel a good connection with the federal government, the fact that the president, President Biden came to Pittsburgh to announce the plan, tells you a lot about what he thinks a lot of that's that connection that we have through Senator Casey and, and Congressman Doyle, Congressman lamb, certainly a very effective enact but we also feel like, you know, not being too political. But what happened in western Pennsylvania, last November had a lot to do with the fact that he is in the White House. And actually, he acknowledged that when he came here the other day, he was very thankful that Western Pennsylvania had done and we've had conversations with Secretary Budaj egg, Budaj edge and his team about some of the projects we would like to see. We've got a lot of sore infrastructure and wet weather issues that we've been dealing with for many years, that's landed on ratepayers. We know we've got some big transportation issues around possibly extending our bus way the East bus way down into the mon Valley, expanding bait street widening bait Street and the Hazelwood green and technology drive area that can open up even more of the opportunities for our great universities, piton CMU to be able to commercialize some of the things that they want to do. We know there's areas around broadband applications that need to occur, particularly in some of our rural areas. And all of these things line up in a good way for us here in southwestern Pennsylvania. So I think you're going to see a lot of those investments that are here. I think they also want to make some investments when it comes to sustainability and green infrastructure. And I think these are some of the projects that we've already been working on, and will continue to work on. And if we can get some of the Federal help and revenues, that can help as well, along those lines, the governor has put a commission together to deal with the fact that we're going to lose some transportation dollars his act 89 comes to an end. And you know, he's actually charged a number of us and I'm lucky to sit on that committee to get rid of the gas tax, and look for other ways to to finance, transportation and transit funding around the Commonwealth. So those are challenges that are always difficult, because they come with the political votes that are needed in our legislature and in our Congress. So there will be a lot of I'm sure a lot of controversy around that maybe some, you know, horse trading that goes into in the compromising that goes into getting these things done. But I think all of us realize we've got some real infrastructure needs in this region. As an aging industrial city, we've got some things that need to be need to be invested in and we want to see that happen.
So there's a couple of questions here and one from Julia Toth, and let's just grab a couple of them because we're going to be packed with a question. So I see Julia is talking about working from home.
Yeah, let's start with Julia from the Business Times saying you know that employees are still advised to work from home, if they can and when might be more than encouraged for people to get back to the workplaces.
I think again, you can start to see some of it now. I mean, depending on the workplaces and how many folks in the workplace have been vaccinated and how effective they can be. However, I do think it the changes are going to be in some ways permanent. I'm not saying people are going to work at home all five days. They may be coming into the office a couple days a week and staying home three days a week or in obviously every situation is going can be different. But I think a lot of folks and a lot of companies have realized that folks can be productive, working at home. However, to be home all the time and not be in contact with your co workers and your customers and the folks that you deal with. There's also some limitations there. I know the meetings we've had certainly better when you, you know, can do it in person. And you have little sidebar conversations that you don't necessarily get to have on on zoom, or teams or Skype or whatever, you know, platform you're using. So and also, when you look at some of our, our downtown areas, Oakland, the foot traffic that is lessened has also had an impact on our restaurants, and the hospitality and cultural amenities. So how that all changes, it's hard to say. But again, as we get back to what we consider, I guess, a new normal, we're just gonna have to see how that all plays out.
stuff. And so Chris Hasan wants to know, what are you hearing about the county or companies asking their employees whether or not they've been vaccinated or not?
That is going to be I think, the next question that we have, because you're going to have certain industries in which the vaccination is going to be more critical, we're starting to see that with the the cruises, you know, those type of industries, the airline industry, on international flights, and you're going to probably see it more as it comes to domestic flights. You may see it in in restaurants and in in concert and sporting event venues, or is there going to be a vaccine section, where everybody who sits in a certain section at a ballgame will show some sort of a vaccine card or an app on their phone, in which all the all the people sitting around them can can feel comfortable that everybody in that section has been vaccinated, that all the employees who interact with the public will be vaccinated people who work in a hospital or work in a nursing home. You know, I think you're going to get to those to those points in which, you know, you've got employers that are going to be concerned about liability if their employees are coming in contact with folks, patients, etc, who aren't vaccinated. What is the ramifications of that? What will insurance carriers want to cover companies along those lines? So I think we're not at that point yet. But you're starting to hear those discussions about vaccine, not necessarily passports, because because the President and the governor have kind of said they're not going to do that. But or you're going to get to a point where you when you show that vaccine card, the fact that you have been vaccinated, will that give you you know, again, the ability to sit at a certain section in a restaurant, or a certain section in a, in a show or a concert venue or a sporting event? How about vaccine mandates being adopted at the state or federal level?
Any thoughts on that?
I don't think that's going to happen. I really don't I mean, I, I just feel like it's going to be the market is probably going to have a lot to do with determining that. I'm actually surprised the percentage of people that still are indicating that they that they won't get a vaccine. That doesn't seem to have been something in our history, when you go back to things like the smallpox vaccine or the polio vaccine, it was pretty much universal that that folks would get it. I'm actually surprised with COVID, the fact that close to 600,000 of our fellow Americans have have perished due to this vaccine, excuse me, due to this, this virus, that more and more people wouldn't want to take the vaccine, but we'll just have to see how that how that plays out in the in the coming months.
So are you feeling and you know, with the amount of vaccines that are actually being disseminated now and the amount of variety of these vaccines? Are we seeing are you seeing in the county any kind of like, resistance? Are we actually deploying most of the vaccines that come in?
We've seen to this point more people that want the vaccine, okay, that are resisting the vaccine, but I think we're going to reach a point as again, it's opened up in the supply seems to be pretty plentiful. And again, the governor's order saying that everybody in Pennsylvania now is eligible to receive a vaccine, where that will go because again, workplaces will be able to say, okay, Has everybody signed up, you've got 30 employees, you got five employees, whatever it might be. And if you've got, you know, 20% or 30% of your workforce, who's saying they're not going to get the vaccine? How are workers? How are our employers going to deal with that? I can tell you in the county, we We have 6500 employees. We've incentivized everybody we're giving everybody $100 gift $400 bonus if they get the vaccine, I know some in corporate America are doing somewhat the same thing. We'd rather use the carrot, so to speak than the stick. But I think at some point companies and governments and other entities, universities, etc, I think that they're going to wrestle with that and figure out a way, a way to do that. If you're a university with 20,000 students, and dormitories and student housing. Are you going to be requiring people? Again, I think those are questions that that a lot of entities right now are wrestling with.
Well, let's just let's switch for a little bit off the vaccine and talk about we mentioned infrastructure and the trickle down that hopefully happens here. in southwestern Pennsylvania, particularly Allegheny County, you've recruited some great leaders, you know, at the airport, you talked about the airport post COVID. You know, the first transformation project post COVID. We also have the Port Authority. So what are some of the exciting additional projects that are underway in those in those departments?
Well, the biggest thing, obviously, is to beat the bus rapid transit linking through Forbes and Fifth Avenue through through Oakland connecting our great university and our Ed's and meds facilities into the corporate headquarters of downtown Pittsburgh got four mile three or four mile stretch coming through uptown, which will just alleviate a lot of that congestion kind of open that up so that we can even more densify what we call the innovation district that so many of our life sciences and tech companies have availed themselves to. So anything we can do to improve transit, we'll get more and more people out of cars, and open up more opportunities for folks to donate and improve our environment, improve our air quality, by the electrification of the buses, which is what's going to happen on the bus rapid transit, you know, in some of the larger that's already been funded that has already been funded by the federal government and the state government and locally, so that project is moving forward. Same with the airport. The airport project, as we indicated, is already on the books that's already moving forward. But some of these newer projects that can also improve transportation extending the East busway, which now ends in swissvale, in rank and the East busway, which connects through East Liberty which has become a dynamic job growth area on through Oakland, which is also you know, has always been, you know, one of the highest employment centers and on into downtown Pittsburgh, which downtown in Oakland are the second and third biggest job creators in the Commonwealth behind downtown Philadelphia. So you've got this this density of employment and density of development that continues to go on. And if we can connect the folks in, you know, on into Braddock and McKeesport and East Pittsburgh, and North Braddock and those mon Valley communities that quite frankly have not come back from the deindustrialization, that happened in the 80s. The way other areas have, we'll start to see that happen. hazeh wood green, which we've been working on the foundations have been putting a lot of money in between Mellon, Heinz, and the benedum. foundation for years, is really ready to start to take off as far as the investment that's happening there. But we've got to connect for folks to be able to get there. So right now, when you're on the parkway coming east, you can't get off the parkway and get on the Hazelwood brain or the technology drive. That'll be part of putting a ramp and off an off ramp so that when you're coming east, you can get off. By the same token when you're coming down Bates street from University of Pittsburgh, again, you can't get onto the parkway heading west to head to downtown and on on into the airport. So and widening a paved Street, anybody's tried to get up or down Main Street in a certain hour of the day knows what a bottleneck that is. So we if we can improve the transportation around that area. And that's going to take a lot of investment to do some of the things that I talked about. Again, we open up areas in which job growth is really taking off because of some of the commercial aspects of the research and development that's coming out of UPMC, Pitt and CMU. So we want to see that, that continue to happen. All sorts of things that we don't see that happen underground, every time that it rains, on the wet weather overflows that occur and send raw sewage into our rivers. We've been dealing with this consent decree for a decade or more. I know congressman Doyle said, you know, way back when when we were in a consent decree, the deal was the federal government was going to be a partner and the ratepayers were going to be a partner. Well, today, it's mostly been the ratepayers who have seen their their their rates go up because the federal government There hasn't been a partner, when it comes to funding some of these projects that again, we don't necessarily see it, but they're happening every time we have a wet weather event. So, you know, the partnership has to go both ways that we need to see the federal government start to invest in some of our aging infrastructure around our sewers and stormwater lies.
So just so two things. One is how much money is coming from the fed to the county, and you know, from the already adopted stimulus package. And then, you know, maybe we can talk a little bit about clean energy and maybe the hydro focus that we've had.
Well, as far as how much money's coming in, we don't know
yet that going out yet
President has proposed approximately a $2 trillion. I'll call it a physical infrastructure plan. And it looks like he's also going to have another trillion dollar, social or human infrastructure plan around things like pre K, childcare, things along those lines, that'll all be negotiated in Congress. So I think there's
a recently passed plan, right? Well,
the recently passed plan was was the recent was not an infrastructure plan, that was strictly to help governments that were having shortfalls with their funding because of COVID, school districts, municipalities, the states, the counties, there was also some funding in place to give people stimulus checks, who, you know, have lost our jobs, or, you know, the unemployment was extended. So there weren't really investments in the art plan that dealt with roads, bridges, and transit. That's, that's kind of what we're working on. Now, similar to what the governor has put forth, and what he would like to see it at the state level, mostly through Penn dot and infrastructure that is going to be invested there. So there's, there's no way of knowing what we ultimately will be in line for. But the important thing is that we're, you know, we're putting our list together as we speak, I mentioned some of the projects, and I'm sure there'll be other projects that we'll be working on regionally on where that will be. But we just don't know what what that dollar figure will ultimately be Audrey.
Okay, that, and then what about clean energy, clean
energy, something that we're working on, and we made an announcement earlier this year, I think two big announcements. The first announcement was for the first time in our history that Allegheny County was in is in compliance with respect to every single air monitor that we have in the county, including the Liberty monitor, which had never been in compliance when it comes to things like pm 2.5. So that was a good goal that had been achieved, there's still more work to be done, because we know there's still been some upset conditions that have happened around things like inversions and climate change that have occurred. So that was a that was a big benchmark to hit. And knowing that there's still more work to be done. The other big announcement we made is that Allegheny County, and lighting its buildings and heating its buildings and cooling its buildings, is going to be using our rivers to generate the electricity that does that. So we're not going to be going using fossil fuels, coal or gas or oil, to be able to run those generators, that heat and light the jail and our canes and our county courthouse and the office buildings, our parks, our skating rinks, all the various things that we do in county government, we're going to be building a hydro plant on the Emsworth logging dam on the Ohio River and using our rivers, to turn that generator to light up all of our buildings, when you think about the implications of what that will mean. And that's a basically a 35 year commitment that we're making long term. It's the equivalent of taking 2.6 billion miles that would be driven over that period of time, off of the roadway. So it's a significant investment that we're making locally, in dealing with climate change, in addition to all the things that the private sector through the green building Alliance, the University of Pittsburgh also doing a big hydro plan on the Highland Park the locks and dams, so that we're doing some of these things locally. If we get some of this federal money, that infrastructure money that they're talking about, that will also invest in clean energy. And in dealing with climate change, that will just add to some of the effects that we're trying to do.
So before before we end the show, I want everyone to also know that you oversee Health and Human Services. So you mean you've seen a lot and there are some highlights there. I know that we have had a Leadership retire from from there who's been a legend for our region for a long time? And what anything that you're seeing in terms of health and human services that you think all of us need to be aware of?
Yeah, I think I think a couple things. You mentioned the fact that mark Charta I who for a quarter century has led the Department of Human Services in the county and quite frankly, the reputation that the human service town and county department has, extends nationally as well as statewide in the in the great work that Mark had done, Mark, you know, we were lucky to recruit him a number of years ago, in actually in the former form of government for all the young people that might not realize we used to have a county commissioner form of government that predates this new form of government. It's now over 20 years old, the county executive and county council form of government. Mark came in that in that day, and he just retired, literally in the last month. And you're right, a new a new director, Aaron Dalton, Aaron had been there as Marc's assistant for a number of years of more than a dozen years. And she was very instrumental in a lot of the data analysis and predictive analytics, that Human Services has really become known for around the country. They've certainly been challenged during this this COVID. Because some of again, some of our most vulnerable people are the folks that they are working with people that are drug and alcohol issues, mhmr, mental health issues, children and youth issues, Department of Aging, again, some of our homeless population, these are the folks that human services deals with some of the money, you know, the art money that we talked about the rescue plan, money has gone into trying to fund some of the initiatives that might have been had a shortfall over the last year with with funding shortages. So those are some of the folks that saw some of that, that funding in those areas. So we want to make sure those folks are vaccinated, we want to make sure that those folks are still getting the food and nutrition services that have been that have been shortfall in so many ways, we're also going to go to expand and open up more of a pre K system in human services, we're hiring a new director, that's going to oversee that, because I think getting kids, particularly in some of our school districts that don't have some of the robust programs to get kids ready for school can be very helpful. It's more of a long term project. But we want these these kids to be ready to learn when they hit kindergarten when they hit first grade. So that you know a lot of the great opportunities that are happening here in our region, that they have the skill set to be able to be able to avail themselves and get to those opportunities.
Yeah, because once if they don't have that, by the time they're five, they're already left behind.
Absolutely.
That's exactly right. Right.
Well, I want to thank you for your leadership, this has been quite a year. I appreciate you coming here on our show and giving us a quarterly update. As you can tell people are passionate about almost everything that you touch and that you're responsible for. So we will stay connected to you. Thank you for your leadership. If there's any, is there anything else that you think you want to share with us?
That I what I want to say so for Jonathan and Brian and Brittany and you, Audrey, so at our next quarterly event, I would like to do it in person.
So there you
go.
From now, or whatever it might be, we can all get together, look each other in the eye. Maybe lie a little bit about how much people have aged over the last year. We don't want to be too.
But, you know,
I can't and I'm sure we're all in the same position. There's so many people that I have not seen for over a year. I miss people you know, it was we were all in the same position. So we see each other on a screen or in a zoom but it'll be good to get together again and break bread and and see each other. Let's
see. 12 weeks from now you think 12 weeks from now will be 70 to 80% vaccinated.
I do I have that idea that Oh,
so yep. Brian, Jonathan, we'll put that on the calendar as well.
Okay, even if we have to do it outside in the summer, so we can at least then we'll
find a way to do that outside together.
So now Coronavirus in the beer.
So last words on the vaccine anyone over the age of 16 or 18? What is it? Well
right now I think it's 16 on and I don't want to get them confused. But Madonna is one and Pfizer is the other. I also think Stay tuned. I think some of the studies that they're doing and that they're doing around 12 year olds and above so you're going to see changes on the health requirements and the health recommendations that the CDC and the FDA are making. So stay tuned. But yes, right now, anybody over the age of 16 can sign up and get a vaccine. And again, places encourage people to do that.
That's what we're doing each and every day. So thank you so much. Thank you for joining us really appreciate it. And I know that Brian put out here the Pitt vaccine centers actively testing on younger populations. So hopefully that'll be in play. Thank you for for your leadership and your commitment to us. And tomorrow, Jonathan, we
have Dr. Ken Whoa, from Pitt talking about the compass study, which is really exciting really monitoring what's going on with COVID in the Pittsburgh region, so it should be a lot of fun and very great.
All right. Thank you, Kenny. Exact Thanks, everyone. They say thanks. Vaccines are open now. Easy, easy to find one. Thanks, everyone.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai